In her new solo show 'A Listening Body' at DPAC, Low aims to make odissi more accessible and recognisable to audiences by offering various entry points to create different encounters with the dance. Photo: The Star/Low Lay Phon
PERFORMING ARTS: A LISTENING BODY: ODISSI SOLO BY JANUARY LOW
Venue: Damansara Performing Arts Centre (DPAC), Petaling Jaya
Date: July 20-22
A Listening Body is a dance-theatre experience based on odissi dancer January Low’s thoughts and questions in and around the dance. It is her return to the stage after more than three years. She last performed in Kuala Lumpur in late 2019.
Low's A Listening Body is informed by her dance experience that spans 30 years, and more recently empowered by a virtual mentorship with India-based odissi exponent Bijayini Satpathy.
Through the performance, Low aims to make odissi more accessible and recognisable to audiences by offering various entry points to create different encounters with the dance. This work peels away the commodified and exoticised layers of odissi to reveal a relationship that is vulnerable and respectful, enabling agency for both audience and performer to be equal partners in the experience.
A Listening Body is her third full solo production and focuses on her day-to-day practice, which does away with the typical trappings associated with Indian classical dance and takes a more intimate approach by focusing on how the dance exists in her body as a Malaysian, a woman and a mother.
More info here.
Janette Hoe, a Malaysian-born, Melbourne-based dance artist and designer, is exhibiting her 'KuehLapis' art project at Temu House. Photo: Takashi Takiguchi
PERFORMING ARTS: 'KUEHLAPIS' BY JANETTE HOE
Venue: Temu House, Petaling Jaya
Date: July 22 to Aug 2
This weekend, Temu House in Petaling Jaya is hosting a new show by Janette Hoe (Australia), a Malaysian-born, Melbourne-based dance artist and designer.
Hoe will be in creative-development with Ria Soemardjo (Australia) and Chuah Chong Yong (Malaysia) on KuehLapis, a site responsive autobiographical project involving multidisciplinary artists, which will be developed over a specified period at Temu House.
KuehLapis, a project that was seeded in 2020, is Hoe’s exploration of her own middle-aged perimenopausal body that was/is constantly changing. Using her art practice to break down these feelings, KuehLapis acknowledges where she came from; “A child peeling and eating each layer of the kueh lapis, much like how I am trying to grapple with this stage of my life, in manageable layers.”.
Visitors are encouraged come by during the Open Studios, as this installation at Temu House will morph on a daily basis.
More info here.
This Sunday, Singaporean composer and sound artist Rosemainy Buang will share the work from her residency at Rimbun Dahan, including an immersive participatory soundscape, and a closing ritual performance. Photo: Rimbun Dahan
ARTS RESIDENCY: RIMBUN DAHAN OPEN DAY
Venue: Rimbun Dahan, KM27, Jalan Kuang, Mukim Kuang, Selangor
Date: July 23, 9am-6pm
This Sunday, current resident artists Rosemainy Buang (Singapore) and Joel Donato Ching Jacob (Philippines) will participate in an Open Day at Rimbun Dahan.
Composer and sound artist Rosemainy will share the work from her two-month residency at Rimbun Dahan, including an immersive participatory soundscape, and a closing ritual performance. She has a decade of training in gamelan, and she is dedicated to expanding her creative horizons through collaborative projects with other artists from diverse disciplines.
Current resident author Jacob will give a workshop about writing with the help of of artificial intelligence.
He will also share a work-in-progress amendment to contracts that protects publishers and authors from having their manuscripts fed to an AI Language Model in order to recreate, emulate, or mimic a copyrighted text.
The Rimbun Dahan Underground Gallery will also be open from 9am to 6pm, showing ‘Menagerie’, a selection of works from its permanent collection.
There will be a morning guided tour of Rimbun Dahan's 5.7ha site, including a general introduction to the contemporary architecture and its South-East Asian indigenous garden and arboretum, as well as the Rumah Uda Manap heritage house.
Free entry, no registration required.
More info here.
A general view of Ilham Gallery's new exhibition 'Nirmala Dutt - Statements'. Photo: Ilham Gallery
EXHIBITION: NIRMALA DUTT – 'STATEMENTS'
Venue: Ilham Gallery, Kuala Lumpur
Date: ends Dec 24
Ilham Gallery's new exhibition pays tribute to the late Malaysian contemporary artist Nirmala Dutt (1941 – 2016), who was one of the few prominent women artists to have emerged during the 1970s.
'Nirmala Dutt: Statements', celebrates this pioneering figure in local art, with the show co-curated by Ilham Gallery director Rahel Joseph, in collaboration with Beverly Yong, Snow Ng, and Ellen Lee.
The exhibition 'Statements' is also the first ever survey of Nirmala's works from across her practice over four decades, spanning documentary photography, painting, silkscreen, collage, and public art.
It hopes to explore the resonance and significance of her work, which consistently addressed social injustice and human suffering.
Free admission exhibition.
More info here.
Penang-based artist Hasanul is back with a new exhibition in Kuala Lumpur. The show titled 'Nightwalking' features a series of new paintings of moths against backgrounds of the celestial night sky. Photo: The Star/Samuel Ong
EXHIBITION: HASANUL ISYRAF IDRIS - NIGHTWALKING
Venue: Rissim Contemporary, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur
Date: ends Aug 6
Penang-based contemporary artist Hasanul Isyraf Idris is making a welcome return with a new solo exhibition titled Nightwalking at Rissim Contemporary, a boutique art space in Kuala Lumpur.
Hasanul’s exhibition - Rissim in collaboration with Richard Koh Fine Art - features a series of new paintings of moths against backgrounds of the celestial night sky. During the pandemic, Hasanul maintained a daily routine of going out at night on walks around his home in the suburbs of George Town and also began rearing insects in his garden.
The wildlife of Penang has been a frequent subject in his recent works. But as subjects, they are not painted as mere observational studies; rather, their behaviours and habits are suffused with symbolic resonance. In the paintings of Nightwalking, the transient, self-destructive nature of moths and the brilliant, melancholic blue of night time come together to visualise the ecstatic cycle of life, death, and regeneration.
Nightwalking is Hasanul’s ninth solo exhibition, following past solo exhibitions in Richard Koh Fine Art and The Back Room. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the region and also at VOLTA Basel and New York.
More info here.
A scene from the experimental theatre show 'Kakurega', featuring Shufitri Shukardi. Photo: @iamabdulsami
THEATRE: KAKUREGA
Venue: Theatresauce HQ, Subang Jaya
Date: ends July 23
Theatre show Kakurega, directed by Murasaki Haru, is a 60-minute immersive and participative project which explores escapism, introspection, and the pursuit of creative expression.
Through two pieces running simultaneously in an "izakaya" and an art studio, audiences are welcomed to scrutinise four artists simmering in their hideouts, bearing different objectives and inner conflicts.
Food will also be served to the audience, and materials provided to encourage creative expression.
The show brings together seasoned and new collaborators that make up the performance ensemble: Phraveen Arikiah, Shufitri Shukardi, Samuel Tin, and John Wee.
Sans Collective’s Bryan Chang is handling the scenography, while Abner Goh and Jazzie Lee Jin Jye stage manage. Chisa Tan is managing the production.
The show is presented by Theatresauce, while a supplementary project where visual artists express their own hideouts is run by Howls Theatre Co (where Murasaki is the artistic director).
More info here.
